When Google introduced Android in 2007, executives at Microsoft vastly underestimated Google’s Android operating system for mobile devices. Not only Microsoft but also the overconfident Nokia believed that Android would have never been a threat for them.
At that time, all big players underestimated Android and 10 years later, Android is the dominant mobile operating system on the planet while Microsoft’s Windows Mobile is nowhere to be seen. How Nokia had fallen that Microsoft had to buy them out and the Redmond giant ultimately given up on its mobile business admitting that it was little too late as Google went far ahead with the development of Android.
While Nokia said that it don’t see Android as a threat, Microsoft said that it had been making phones for five years, claiming that Android was too late. “It really sounds that they are getting a whole bunch of people together to build a phone and that’s something we’ve been doing for five years. I don’t understand the impact that they are going to have.” Microsoft’s Scott Horn said.
Symbain on the other hand said that Android should be taken seriously but the company believed that they had the real platform for phones. “We take it seriously but we are the ones with real phones, real phone platforms and a wealth of volume built up over years,” Symbian’s John Forsight said.
In 2017, Google’s Android is ruling the smartphone market, Nokia has gone with Android, Symbian is dead, Apple is competing with Google while Microsoft has given up on Windows Mobile. With that being said, one should never underestimate the competitors.
